Italian Sausage Lasagna

One of my great aunt's sent me Ina Garten's Family-style cookbook for my engagement. The book is filled with amazing pictures and, if you have ever watched Ina before, you recognize Ina's banter in the notes section. The first recipe I tried from the book was Ina's Italian Sausage Lasagna. We had a couple of friends over and served them the dish and it was a huge hit! Ever since I made it the first time, Joey has been asking me to make it again.

So last night we invited a few people over and made it again. The recipe is a little time consuming in the preparation, so I refuse to make it on a weeknight, but it is well worth the trouble.

Ina's recipe can be found in the book or here, but I'll rewrite it anyway for ease.

Italian Sausage Lasagna

INGREDIENTS:

Sauce
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup chopped yellow onion (1 medium onion)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 pounds sweet Italian turkey sausage, casings removed, broken up into chunks with 2 forks
1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes in tomato puree
1 (6-ounce) can tomato paste
2T chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
1/2 t Kosher salt
1/4 t black pepper

Cheese Mixture
15 ounces ricotta cheese
2 T parsley, chopped
3 to 4 ounces creamy goat cheese, crumbled
1 cup grated Parmesan
1 extra-large egg, lightly beaten
1/2 t Kosher salt
1/4 t black pepper

Other
1/2 pound lasagna noodles (~10)
1 pound fresh mozzarella, thinly sliced
1/4 cup grated Parmesan

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Heat olive oil in a large skillet or pan over medium low heat (I used a large dutch oven because last time it splattered all over the stove) add onions and cook for 5 minutes until translucent
3. Add garlic and cook for one minute more. Add Italian sausage and cook for 8-10 minutes until no longer pink
4. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, parsley, basil, salt and pepper and simmer over med-low heat for 15-20 minutes until thickened.
5. Meanwhile, fill a large bowl with the hottest tap water and soak the noodles for 20 minutes
6. In a medium bowl, combine all the ingredients for the cheese mixture. Set aside.
7. Ladle 1/3 of the sauce into a 9x13 baking dish (I use glass). Spread evenly across the bottom and then layer with half the pasta, half the mozzarella, half the cheese mixture and 1/3 of the sauce. Top in the same way with the rest and finish with sauce.
8. Sprinkle 1/4 cup of Parmesan over the top.
9. Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes until the sauce is bubbling. Let cool for 10-15 minutes before serving. Serve with garlic bread and salad.

Applesauce Cake

I don't like those little individual servings of applesauce. I don't like them because they are so watery. So when I'm jonsing for some applesauce, I have to buy the big jar. Then I eat a little of it and that's enough and I don't know what to do with the rest.

I read somewhere that you could use applesauce in place of oil in any cake. But how often do you make cake? Then I had it, autumn is eminent, why not make an applesauce cake? I used Google Blog Search to find a recipe and came up with a golden ticket. As luck would have it, I had some extra buttermilk lying around too!

Unfortunately, I made an error in cooking time..or perhaps there is a misprint in the recipe? Either way, this is what happened. I cooked th cake in an 8x8 glass cake pan for the listed time, I tested it with a toothpick and it came out clean. I let the cake cool. Late into the evening--around 11, I decided to cut the cake into squares so that I could bring it to work and not eat it all myself. The edges were done, but unfortunately, the middle was not. It was completely raw, but it had been cooling for so long. I salvaged the edges and the bottom and threw the remainder away.

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. allspice
½ tsp. nutmeg
¼ tsp. ground cloves
½ tsp. salt
½ cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
½ tsp. vanilla
1 cup applesauce
¼ cup buttermilk

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease and flour the bottom of an 8x8 pan (next time I will use 2 regular circle pans)
2. Sift together the first seven ingredients
3. Beat together butter and sugar until fluffy.
4. Add eggs one at a time. Add vanilla and applesauce.
5. The mixture at this point is very wet. Alternate flour mixture and buttermilk with the mixer at very low speed. Be sure to start and end with flour.
6. Bake at 375 for 25-30 minutes until toothpick comes out clean.

This was a big hit at the office. Thanks for the recipe, Kristen!

Karen's Amazing Chocolate Caramel Dessert

My friend Allison's sister Karen sent Allison a care package for her birthday back in July. In it were these amazing chocolate caramel dessert bars. Allison shared her bounty with me--I probably had eight of the delicious little morsels. I asked for the recipe straight away.

The recipe, while it looks easy--actually happened to be a little bit difficult. The problem was that I might possibly have not split the batter into two parts. Someone who has made these before recommended taking the second half of the batter and stretching it across the top with your hands because once it is down, it sticks and is impossible to move.

Karen's Amazing Chocolate Caramel Dessert

INGREDIENTS:
-1 package yellow cake mix
-2/3 C evaporated milk, divided
-1 1/2 sticks butter (melted)
-~55 caramels
-1 C chocolate chips (I used the mini ones and this turned out to be easier to spread)

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour the bottom of a 9x13 pan.
2. Mix yellow cake mix, melted butter, and 1/3C evaporated milk
3. Take 1/2 of the mix and cover the bottom of cake pan, spread evenly with a rubber spatula (it turns out these are mostly made with silicon now)
4. Bake for 10 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, ombine caramels and 1/3 C evaporated milk and melt in microwave until melted (~4min)
6. Pour the caramel mixture over the bottom crust.
7. Evenly sprinkle the chocolate chips over caramel.
8. Cover with remaining cake mix (this is very hard, see above notes
9. Bake an additional 15-20 minutes

Allow to cool completely before trying to cut. Once cut, nobody noticed that the top was missing. I didn't have any left by the end, they go like hotcakes.

Lemon Pasta

While I did not taste or even see this dish, I entered the house shortly after it was cooked and it smelled absolutely delicious. Jenny has taken to listening to a particular podcast recently called The Splendid Table. The podcast discusses a variety of food topics but Jenny's favorite part is when the leader of the cast answers questions from people who called in.

Recently, a lady called in about a taste she was craving after a recent trip to Italy. There they had pasta with a Lemon Sauce. The speaker questioned the lady about the sauce and gave her ideas of how to recreate it at home. Jenny is a big fan of Lemon Pasta and decided to make the dish herself after hearing what sounded like a simple recipe. The recipe doesn't have measurements and can easily be adjusted to taste.

And simple it was (and delicious to boot!)

Ingredients:

- Olive Oil

- 1 Lemon

- 3-4 cloves of garlic

- Coarse salt

- Ground pepper

- Fettuccine

Directions:

1. Place a generous amount of olive oil in a skillet, coating the bottom of the pan. Place the zest of an entire lemon in with the oil, along with 3-4 cloves of garlic, cut up in petals. Sauté over medium heat with salt and pepper to taste.

2. Boil fettuccine in heavily salted water. A minute or two before you are to drain the pasta, take 1/2 c. of the pasta water and place in the oil mixture. Stir in and let cook, to thicken oil mixture.

3. Drain pasta. Place in skillet and toss with oil mixture.

4. Remove from heat. Pour in juice from lemon onto pasta. Toss. Garnish with Parmesan cheese.

Fresh Mozzarella Salad w/ Avocado & Roasted Corn

I love fresh mozzarella. Here is where I found this recipe. Of course the original calls for tomatoes which I omitted, also, it called to lay on a bed of greens & I decided it was already a large amount, so I skipped that as well. The colder the better...we had some left over from dinner last night which I ate for lunch today & I liked it better really cold. Next time, I will make in advance & cut the avocados up right before I serve so they don't brown.

Needed: Banana Recipe

As I was leaving the store today I noticed a cart with bags full of Banana's for 99 Cents (5 bunches for 99 cents you only see 4 below long story short...locked my keys in the car...best neighbor in the world came for Me & Julia...shared my bargin with her).

Now what am I going to do with all these bananas???? Any thoughts?

Cold Green Bean Salad with Tarragon Dressing

I was trying to find a green bean recipe that was similar to the one Aunt Gail made for the reunion...this wasn't it, but, it was very good. I omited quite a few of the ingredients from the original recipe I found & changed it from a 2 bean salad to a 1. Here is the link.